Wanabe wrote:

Personaly I don't like most Americans since they think they own every single thing in my country (yes, even me! no doubt), it appears. I despise these ones in particular. I believe Americans are very, very RICH.

I believe that making generalizations about an entire country (one of the largest too) is perfectly acceptable and always correct, and that having any sort of proof would invalidate the whole idea. The only solution here is to unconditionally hate all people from that country based on the absolutely correct assumption that you have made.

Maybe they could have like a bunch of maxed out credit cards or something.
<EDIT>
In reply to Wanabe's edit maybe they only appear rich until their payments are due?

Very true. It's called "Living beyond your means," and it's the real American past time. You don't think this is true? Take a look at the example set by our government: when it finds out they haven't overspent by as much as they thought they would, they consider that having money left over (a budget surplus)... and by and large, us citizens live that same way.

For everybody who asks "How is this possible?" It's possible the same way it's possible to swim. You basically keep moving and make sure your head stays mostly above water. Why don't the credit card companies and banks repossess everything? Because then they wouldn't get to keep making money off people's folly. It is to the lender's benefit to keep the borrowers in debt, never quite to the level where they can't pay, but always hovering near it.

[EDIT]

But at the same time... our poor are better off than the poor of many, many countries... and the impoverished middle class still has a high standard of living.

Loduwijk wrote:

The US is not rich. It is in debt, so it looks rich.

You can see it from the government level right on down to the lower classes. Many of the people in this country who look the most wealthy are in fact only the most in debt. The majority of US citizens do not even own their own homes.

The US suffers from many economic diseases. It is like a person who owns nothing but lounges on pillows borrowed from one neighbor while dining on food grown by another neighbor - the person looks rich but is actually poorer than his neighbors.

Again, that's looking at it from an American point of view.
Hardly anyone in England owns their own houses too!
Lots of people live in council houses, owned by the Government, and the ones that don't are still (usually do for 30/40 years after) paying back their loans from buying their houses in the first place.

Does that mean they are poor?
Hell no!
They aren't going to wake up one morning and find themselves with no roof.

Stop blowing the situation out of proportion:
So, we're in debt?
That's how the economy WORKS.

You guys aren't "poor" because of it!
Come on, if you were poor, I say again- you wouldn't be surfing the internet.

Tsk. You Americans are the only super-power left in the world, and you go around sulking, claiming that you are "poor"?

Hahaha.

You are dreaming. My grandpa(who I live with)lost his job over a year and a half ago. He can't find a new one, and hes not old enough to retire. Go back to school you say? For what? He already has a masters(which he got in 5 years, which is quite an acheivement), graduated second in his class from Ball State. If thats not good enough to get a job, what is? Your speaking from a third person perspective, and assuming your not that old, a lack of experience in the job market. My grandpa put in 3 applications at week for a year(at LEAST 3, often many more)untill his "pention" ran out, if you could even call it that. I will even go so far as to say your statement offended me.

My grandpa is 57 years old, worked at Essex for almost 30 years as an accountant, and has had 2 heart attacks. No one will hire him, hes applied to places all over the country, and his resume is damned impressive. You don't seem to understand certain factors in the job hiring proccess such as age and health risks.

I was almost ready to edit my post, but you expressed my remaining views to a T.

Actually Hedgemistress, what you just said does not offend me at all, and yes, it is true. Of course he was lucky. He took risks, obviously. What successful person does not take risks? It's what you need to do in life. People give up to easily. And when he set an example of his grandfather not getting a job after three applications, does that mean everyone can't get a job in three applications?

Hedgemistress, anyone can do what my dad did if they work hard enough, everyone. I don't even know why you bothered saying they couldn't. Life is life. You learn, study, work, take risks. The guy who started the Virgin company took risks the whole way, now he's a billionaire. Sure, you'll lose some, but then you'll gain some back later. Realise how the people who took risks are always wealthy? Look at Donald Trumph. He was - 10,000,000,000 dollars. Yes, negative. He owed that much. Now, he took risks the whole way. He payed that back and got so much more. Take damn risks and stop worrying about if you have enough gas money. That's the problem with our society.

So hich is it?

Of course he was lucky.

or

Hedgemistress, anyone can do what my dad did if they work hard enough, everyone.

If he was lucky, that means not everyone can do it. You really, extremely don't get it. No, the example of his grandpa doesn't prove that nobody can get a job... I wasn't saying anything remotely close to that.

In order to demonstrate how extremely you don't get it, you go ahead throw up another example of Donald Trump. Guess what? Still doesn't prove anything! This is called "arguing by anecdote." People do it all the time because it seems perfectly easy and perfectly logical, and it only has one tiny little problem... it doesn't really work.

Here's a bit thing you're missing: capitalism is a competitive event. Not everybody can win it. There has to be losers. It's built into the system. And it's not like a nice, short sprint on a well-maintained level course where there are no obstacles and you can clearly see from one end of the track to the other. You can do everything within your power and still fail. No amount of market research will completely predict what your investments will do tomorrow. No amount of hard work will guarantee that you have the total edge over your opponents, who may have managed to work even harder. No guarantees, period. If you could live forever, eventually everybody would be rich and everybody would be poor at some point, much like Mr. Trump.

But we don't live forever... and what's worse, nobody knows when our time is up. We're all working under a deadline and we have no idea when it's coming. What if teh D0n4ld had had an aneurysm when he was at the bottom of the barrel? All of a sudden, one teeny tiny random change in his brain, and your example that "proves" nobody has to be poor proves the opposite.

Sure, you can't win if you don't play, but that doesn't mean any amount of playing will "make" you win. What you're saying is that everybody can win the lottery of life. It doesn't work that way! If a game has winners, it must have losers. For someone to succeed... someone else has to fail. For someone to succeed beyond their wildest imaginings... many people have to fail. No amount of "being cut throat" or "playing to win" is going to guarantee you make it to the top... or even to a comfortable level... because again, nobody can see the whole playing field.

Take damn risks and stop worrying about if you have enough gas money.

And again, you underscore how much you miss the point. Guess why they're called "risks?" Because not everybody who takes the jump, makes the jump. Most people don't.

That's the problem with our society.

If everybody gambled on entrepreneurship, our society would be gone, because the economy would be totally shot. The problem with our society is that people don't want to think. The people who use failure as an excuse to stop trying have their magic bullet... you have yours. Both you and them have decided you "know" how life works, which means you'll never have to think about it again.

Lazy!

I am sorry but that is not negative, it is truthful.